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STORY: Why is English so hard to spell?There are clear differences between how words are written and how they are said.If English is your first language you may not realize it’s not that normal ...
English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, and kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled in different ways, sometimes even in the same sentence. However, these were generally much better guides to the then-pronunciation than modern English ...
Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) [2] or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, which began in the late 14th century and was completed by the 17th century.
In Middle English the two spellings were associated with different pronunciations. In current English, the word, however spelled, is always given the pronunciation originally associated only with the jail spelling / dʒ eɪ l /. The survival of the gaol spelling in British English is "due to statutory and official tradition". [155]
The article's lead section may need to be rewritten.The reason given is: the current lead (i) contradicts the content of the Word origins section and a prominent figure legend, (ii) contains statements only appearing in the lead (violating WP:LEAD), and (iii) presents statements unsupported by citation (anywhere, violating WP:VERIFY), and thus, (iv) appears to violate WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH.
Such spelling reform seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. [1] Common motives for spelling reform include making learning quicker, making learning cheaper, and making English more useful as an international auxiliary language .
The irregularity of English spelling arises partly because the Great Vowel Shift occurred after the orthography was established; partly because English has acquired a large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at varying levels; and partly because the regularisation of the spelling (moving away from the ...
English does not allow topic-drop, as evidenced by the insertion of expletive subjects in sentences such as There is rain. Yang notes that in English child-directed speech, children very rarely hear expletive subjects. Yang asserts that this leads English-acquiring children to momentarily conclude that English is a topic-drop language.